


home

by idkimoutofideas



Series: febuwhump 2021 [9]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt, FebuWhump2021, Found Family, Gen, Lucretia needs a hug, Not a lot of comfort, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-24
Updated: 2021-02-24
Packaged: 2021-03-15 06:54:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,370
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29680116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/idkimoutofideas/pseuds/idkimoutofideas
Summary: 'Home is people, not a place. If you go back there after the people are gone, then all you can see is what’s not there anymore’- Robin HobbWhen Lucretia gets lonely, she visits the Starblaster.
Relationships: The Director | Lucretia & IPRE Crew | Starblaster Crew
Series: febuwhump 2021 [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2154915
Kudos: 10
Collections: febuwhump 2021





	home

Ten years.

Lucretia had never thought this would take ten years. And she still wasn’t anywhere close to done.

Founding the Bureau of Balance helped, but the Reclaimers could never resist the thrall of the Relics. No one could. The only people who had a chance were the people who made them in the first place. But none of them could help.

It wasn’t just because she wiped their memories. At some point over the last ten years, Lucretia lost track of them. Lup had already been lost, and though Lucretia still searched she didn’t have much hope. She had found Barry briefly a few times over the years, only for him to disappear again. And Davenport was with her. But the others…

Ravensroost fell, and Lucretia didn’t even know if Magnus survived. She had just wanted to give him a home, but even that was ripped away from him. Taako’s show went sideways too. She still wasn’t sure what exactly happened, but all of a sudden he disappeared and she couldn’t find him again. And Merle… Merle left. He just left. Lucretia thought she had set him up with a nice life, the beach dwarves were so similar to the ones they had on their home planet, but he never was one to settle down.

It was harder, in some ways, having Davenport so close. She remembered what he used to be like, and couldn’t help but compare the Captain, the one who took charge and always had a plan and would make the right choice no matter how difficult, with this Davenport. Davenport who could barely say his own name, who would sometimes stand and stare at nothing for hours, who couldn’t tell her if she was doing the right thing. 

Lucretia had been tempted so many times to inoculate him, just to have him back, as the captain but also as a friend. She missed her family so much. 

But she couldn’t. Doing that would throw the last ten years down the drain. It would mean all her work was for nothing.

It was hard, being the Director. She felt like her work would never be done. In ten years she had only recovered one Relic, and almost died going after a second. How could she ever hope to complete her task? It was enormous. And humans didn’t have that long of a life in comparison to elves and dwarves and gnomes. After Wonderland she had lost even more time. What if she never did it? What if she was too late?

Anytime it got to be too much, Lucretia would go do the Starblaster.

When she was at the Bureau she was Madame Director. Cold, hard, calculating. Holding herself at a distance from her employees because she had to.

But in the ship she could just be Lucretia.

She could be someone who missed her family.

She thought it would help, having the Starblaster nearby. A familiar place to escape to. But it just hurt. That ship had been their home for 100 years, and now it was full of ghosts.

Sometimes she could almost convince herself that the others were fine, they were out on a scouting mission, that she’d stayed back with the ship and they’d be back soon. But she could never kid herself for long.

The Starblaster grew old and dusty with disuse. There had been a few times she’d been tempted to clean it, to get rid of the cobwebs and small piles of wood shavings scattered about, but she could never bring herself to. That would mean erasing the last traces of the rest of the crew.

Taako had left a half finished risotto in the kitchen refrigerator, but Lucretia never even tried cleaning it out. The one time she thought about it, she was hit with a memory from cycle 74. That year both Taako and Lup had died rather early on, leaving the rest of them to make their own food. They did fine, but found a collection of moldy vegetables taking up space in the fridge and threw them out, assuming they were inedible. Only for Taako to come back the next cycle and chew them all out for touching his food. Evidently he’d been saving them for some great dish. He never got around to making it.

The lab was completely deserted. Had been even before the memory wipe. It was where Barry and Lup spent the most time together, and after she disappeared it became too much for him. Petri dishes were scattered on the tables next to specimens on slides under microscopes that no one would ever look at. The lab always felt the most like a ghost town.

Merle’s garden sat at the back of the ship, under some windows so the plants could get sunlight. He used to set them up on the deck once he was sure the atmosphere was hospitable for plants. Lucretia tried to tend to the garden, but she never had a green thumb. She brought some of the plants into the moon base proper, hoping a little extra space and air would help, but if anything it only caused the plants to die faster. So she left them alone, though she kept one small potted plant on her desk in the Bureau, the only one that survived. It was a small flower from their home planet, and she couldn’t bear the thought of it dying.

Lucretia never spent much time in the training room, even during their travels. That was Magnus’ area. Though Barry, surprisingly, took up a bit of fighting later on, something about balancing their number of magic users versus physical fighters. He was surprisingly good at it too. For the rest of them, however, the training room was too small to be of much use. They preferred to practice out on the surface of whatever world they were on, or at the very least on the deck of the ship. Still, Magnus loved the room, and dutifully took care of it. Constantly repairing the training dummies and making extras, making sure the first aid kit was stocked. At some point over the years it became a weapons storage room as well. Magnus collected every strange type of weapon they found in their travels, and took pride in keeping them in good condition. Even now, after ten years of neglect, the blades still shone.

And the bridge. It was the only part of the ship that Lucretia kept clean. Partly because it was the only area she used, though she hadn’t had much cause to move the ship in ten years. But the main reason she kept it clean was because she knew Davenport would want it that way. He was always particular about keeping the bridge clean and organized, with everything in its proper place. 

The bridge started clean, and she was going to keep it that way. When she collected all the Relics and finished enacting her plan - and she  _ would _ do it eventually - she didn’t want him to be disappointed in the state of the ship.

It was hard, walking the halls of the Starblaster. It was too quiet, too empty, too lifeless. She thought it would be comforting to have it nearby, to have her home right there. But it wasn’t the same without the others.

Without Taako and Lup arguing in the kitchen about what to put in the obligatory stew of the week.

Without Barry going on long winded explanations to simple questions that no one asked.

Without Lup setting fire to something every five seconds, by accident and on purpose.

Without Merle trying to seduce every plant they came across, against all of their wishes, with surprising and unfortunate results.

Without Magnus’ infectious energy for life, his booming laugh that echoed throughout the entire ship.

Without Davenport's calm demeanor, his steady focus on their goal, how he would do his best not to laugh at a prank Magnus or Taako pulled but could never quite hide his smile. 

It wasn’t the same.

The Starblaster was just a ship, after all. The only reason it ever felt like home was because of the people who shared it with her.


End file.
